


Replacements, Rescues, and Reunions

by dreamiflame



Series: I Need Answers [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7226650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/pseuds/dreamiflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sabé takes Padmé's place to hide on Naboo, she and Anakin end up having a very different adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Replacements, Rescues, and Reunions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anaraine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaraine/gifts).



> Shmi Lives, as requested! I fudged the timeline a lot, but as we have no actual idea how long it takes to travel from planet to planet, who cares? Thank you to my awesome beta, who cheer led while I wrote and then helped whip this into shape as a tidy little story.

It took Anakin a day and a half and three meals to look closely at Sabé's face and say, “You’re not Padmé.”

Sabé raised an eyebrow at him, and very carefully did not roll her eyes. “Took you long enough to figure that out.”

The change in him was remarkable, and to be honest, a little frightening. He intensified, like he was about to attack. “Where is she?”

“Wherever Obi-Wan is now,” Sabé said, calmly sipping her drink. “Someone is trying to kill her, and my lady is not about to hide away while others are hurt in her place.”

Anakin frowned. “The Council assigned me to protect her.”

“I’m sure your master has it under control,” Sabé said, and watched the frown deepen into a pout. “Think of this as a chance for a vacation.”

“Jedi don’t take vacations,” Anakin said, sulky now. Sabé thought about pointing out how childish he was being, but remembered how much she’d hated that kind of thing at his age.

His face suddenly changed, from pout to thoughtful. “But maybe…”

“Maybe?” Sabé prompted, after he’d been silent for a long moment. Anakin appeared lost in thought, but at least he’d stopped pouting.

“Could we get a ship, on Naboo? I mean, could I? You certainly don’t have to come with me.”

Crossing her arms, Sabé leaned back in her chair. “If I’m loaning you a ship, I’m coming with you. Where would we be going?”

“Tatooine,” Anakin said. “I’m going to see my mother.”

*

Tatooine was just as hot, bright, and uncomfortable as Sabé remembered it. The bumpy ride in the droid-pulled rickshaw didn't make it any better.

“Why would anyone live here?” she muttered. The rickshaw jerked to a stop.

“Most of the people who do don’t have a choice, or they’re hiding from the law,” Anakin replied, and offered her a hand out of the rickshaw. “Wait here,” he told the droid pulling the carriage, and Sabé followed him over to where a Toydarian was scolding a pit droid, and stayed quiet during their conversation. Or interrogation. What Anakin was doing could be considered either. When Watto had given them the information, Sabé glanced over at him as they left.

“That was intense,” she said, and Anakin shrugged, not looking at her as he helped her back into the rickshaw.

“Being back here is-” he broke off, and shut his eyes. Sabé gestured for the droid to start moving again. “Uncomfortable,” he finished, looking at her finally. “Take us back to the ship.”

“Okey dokey,” the droid said, and Sabé let Anakin stew during the short ride.

He flung himself into the pilot’s seat when they got back into the ship, and Sabé didn’t object to him piloting them the short hop to the next settlement. She wasn't expecting to see much when they got there, but life was full of surprises.

“What’s that?” she asked, spotting the large gathering of men, women, speeders and speeder bikes at their destination.

“I’m not sure,” Anakin replied, and set the ship down just past the gathering. A tall, weather beaten man met them at the ramp.

“I’m looking for Shmi Skywalker,” Anakin said, and the man nodded, looking grim.

“You’re Anakin, then?” Anakin nodded. “Thought you might be. We’re all looking for Shmi right now. She got captured this morning, and we’re going to go get her back.”

Sabé’s blood ran cold. “Captured?”

“Tuskens,” the man said. “I’m Cliegg Lars, and Shmi is my wife, but we don’t really have time for a long chat now.”

“I’m coming with you,” Anakin said, and Cliegg nodded again. Sabé took a mental inventory, and darted back up the ramp for a heavier blaster.

“You coming too, miss?” A younger, less roughened version of Cliegg asked as she emerged from the ship again.

“I am,” Sabé said, and the man gestured to where Anakin was climbing onto a speeder bike. She hurried to join him, and ignored his frown as she climbed up behind him.

Anakin turned to look at her. “You should stay here, where it’s safe.”

Sabé wrapped her arms firmly around Anakin’s waist, forcing him to face ahead of them. “Someone needs to keep you out of trouble, and I’m the only one here who knows that. Besides, Padmé’s fond of you. She’ll be furious if I let you get hurt.”

“How fond?” Anakin asked. Sabé was saved having to answer when the lead speeder took off with a yell, and Anakin gunned their engine to join it, racing on ahead.

He flew on the speeder bike like he flew a spaceship, recklessly, but with reflexes so fast it took Sabé’s breath away. After a few terrifying moments, she pressed her face to his back, closed her eyes, and just hung on for dear life. You can take the Jedi out of the pod race, she thought, remembering the story Padmé had brought back, but you couldn’t take the pod racer out of the Jedi.

In the distance, the Tuskens came into view.

All too soon, there was yelling and battle cries above the howl of the wind, and the settlers began exchanging fire with a group of ragged looking individuals. Sabé leaned around Anakin and shot her heavier blaster at the closest Tusken, who screamed and dropped the curved, bladed club it held as it fell.

The fighting was vicious and swift. Anakin stopped the speeder bike and leapt off, igniting his lightsaber as he flew through the air. The Tuskens swung their clubs at him, but were invariably too slow, and fell in pieces to the sand as he cut his way through them. Sabé jumped off the bike, using it for cover from the few long range guns the Tuskens were using as she kept them away from Anakin’s back.

The other settlers were not as fortunate: Sabé saw one speeder erupt into flames and oily black smoke as the Tuskens managed to hit something vital with their primitive guns. More of the attacks began focusing on Anakin, though, as the Jedi slashed and chopped at any Tusken who dared face him.

Eventually they broke and ran, some sort of weird call rallying them to flight. Sabé abandoned her post behind the speeder bike and hurried to catch Anakin, who looked like he wanted to chase them all down. 

“Anakin,” she called, and Anakin spun to face her, the blue light of his saber casting odd, foreign shadows onto his face.

She came to a stop about a meter from him, and raised her hand. “It’s over, Ani,” she said, talking him down as she’d had to with a few of the other handmaidens after particularly intense training sessions. “They’re gone. We can find your mother now.”

Anakin shook himself, and the saber vanished back into the hilt, the shadows disappearing as the light did. “She’s in their village,” he said. “I can feel her.”

Cliegg, supported by the man who had to be his son, limped up to them. Blood ran from a wound above his knee, but Sabé was reasonably sure he’d keep the leg, if he got medical help soon enough. “Any sign of her?”

Sabé followed Anakin, who led the way through the squalid mess of the Tusken camp until he ducked into a tent that looked no different from any other. Cliegg and his son trailed them, but stayed outside when Sabé went inside.

A woman with thick brown hair was tied to some sort of frame, the knots tight on her wrists and ankles. Anakin was hurriedly freeing her, while the woman looked at him in wonder. “Is this my son?” she asked, and touched his face with her free hand. “Is this my beautiful grown up boy?”

Anakin gathered her away from the rack into a hug, and Sabé studied what she could see of his mother over his shoulder. “Mom, I’m so sorry I was late, and you got hurt,” he said, and Shmi shushed him.

“It’s only a little bruising,” she said, but Sabé was concerned over the bloody lump she could see on the side of Shmi’s head. “How did you find me?”

“Shmi?” Cliegg called from outside, and Shmi shifted in Anakin’s arms, turning toward the door. Her face lit up like the double sun. “Shmi, are you alright?”

Sabé stepped out of the way as Shmi headed to the door, but caught Anakin’s arm as he tried to follow his mother. “Are you calm now?”

“What?” Anakin looked confused.

“I saw you, when you were fighting. I’ve seen Jedi fight before, and they don’t look like that.”

He pulled his arm away from her grasp roughly and straightened his robe. “Like what?”

“Like you hated each and every one of the Tuskens you killed,” Sabé said, evenly. It wasn’t her place, and she wasn’t a Jedi, but she knew anger and hate when she saw them, and she knew a Jedi was not supposed to give into either. And if his Master wasn’t here to call him on it, she would.

Anakin started to sneer at her, then they both heard his mother laugh, and something deflated in him. 

“No, a Jedi isn’t supposed to fight like that,” he said, slowly, like he’d just had an uncomfortable realization. Sabé hoped for his sake he had.

“Think about it,” Sabé advised him, and ducked back out of the door.

Cliegg’s son was on one side of Cliegg, while Shmi held him up on the other. “And this lovely young miss is one hell of a shot,” Cliegg said, giving Sabé a smile. “I never caught your name, my dear.”

“I’m Sabé,” she said, and smiled at them. Anakin joined them in the open air, and Shmi beamed at him.

“Well, this is my wife, Shmi, and my son, Owen. I appreciate your help, and it’s nice to finally meet you, Anakin. You’re always welcome in our house.”

“Thanks,” Anakin said, and moved to take his mother’s place. “We should get you both back to some medical care.”

They improvised a binding to help stop Cliegg’s bleeding, and loaded him back into one of the functioning speeders. The remaining rescuers gave a cheer to see Shmi safe, and the whole rag-tag group turned back to Cliegg’s farm.

Sabé drove the speeder bike she and Anakin had arrived on, Shmi holding carefully on behind her. The Tuskens had landed a few good hits on it, and Sabé had to focus on steering as they’d managed to sever one of the lines to the vanes. Anakin drove the speeder Cliegg and a few other of the more wounded rescuers had been placed in. He gave Sabé a long, level look before he started off, and Sabé knew if anything happened to his mother, Anakin would never forgive her.

“Thank you for coming to rescue me,” Shmi said as they flew. With the steering as finicky as it was, Sabé wasn’t going nearly as fast as they made the trip out, but most of the other speeders were taking the same easy pace. “It was kind of you, to risk your life for a stranger.”

Sabé shrugged. “You were kind to some strangers yourself, ten years ago. My best friend, Padmé, she was very impressed by your hospitality.”

“How is Padmé?” Shmi asked. “She was such a lovely girl. Anakin was so taken with her. Did they stay friends?”

“My lady has had a busy ten years,” Sabé told her, and explained how all unknowing, Shmi had hosted royalty for a night. “We hadn’t seen Anakin since Qui-Gon’s funeral until a few days ago.”

Shmi was quiet, and Sabé focused on her flying. The suns were dropping fast now, sending huge shadows and brilliant colors across the desert in front of them.

It was full dark by the time they made it back to the farm, Shmi giving directions quietly at Sabé’s ear. Anakin was waiting for them, pacing and peering into the darkness. “The medic is still here, Mother,” he said, helping Shmi off the bike. Sabé climbed off and walked the speeder bike to where other vehicles had been parked. “I want her to look at your head.”

“You’re fussing over nothing, Ani,” Shmi said, but she let herself be led inside. Sabé stared up at the stars, trying to find a familiar constellation, until her long delayed shakes had worked their way through her, and she was shivering from the cold instead of adrenaline and fright.

A girl about her own age met her at the bottom of the stairs into the house, a steaming mug in her hand. “I was just coming to find you,” she said, and offered Sabé the mug. “I’m Beru. Owen’s my boyfriend. Shmi said you’d probably need a drink.”

Sabé sipped and tasted spices, something sweet, and something bitterly strong in the drink. Exactly what she needed, she thought, and took another sip. “Thank you. I’m Sabé. How is Shmi?”

Beru smiled. “She’s fine, or so she keeps saying. Her son, Ani, is it?” Sabé nodded. Close enough, and that’s what his mother called him. “He keeps hovering around the medic, and annoying her. I think she’s going to toss him out soon. Are you hungry? We held supper, given how late you were getting back.”

“A little,” Sabé said, and let Beru set her up with food in the kitchen. Anakin stomped in to join her a bit later, the medic clearly having reached the end of her patience. Beru raised her eyebrows at Sabé and smiled.

“How’s Cliegg?” she asked Anakin, and he stilled.

A look of confusion crossed his face, then he shrugged. “He’ll be fine, the medic said. If we hadn’t gotten him back so quickly, he probably would have lost his leg, but she said he’ll be okay.” Beru silently set a plate of food in front of him, and Anakin dug in, nodding his thanks. “I guess- my mom really loves him,” Anakin said. He sounded bewildered.

Sabé thought of Cordé, assassinated in Padmé’s place, and did not cry. “Doesn’t your mom deserve someone to love, who loves her too?”

“Well, yes,” Anakin said, and ate a few more bites. “But I guess I never thought she would find anybody.”

Beru sat across from them. “Cliegg met her when he went to Mos Espa for parts,” she said. Sabé sipped her drink and listened. “He thought she was the nicest woman he’d met since Owen’s mother, his first wife, and he couldn’t believe the universe was so unfair as to make her a slave. So he bought her, and brought her here, and told her she was free. Shmi didn’t really have anywhere else to go, and Cliegg was kind enough to offer her a place on the farm, so she stayed. They fell in love while they worked together, and about a year after that, they got married.”

Sabé finished her food, and nudged Anakin with a shoulder. “Your mother is going to be fine. That’s good, right? I know you’ve been having nightmares.”

Anakin nodded, and Sabé left him to his dinner. She went back to the ship to sleep, leaving the extra rooms of the farm to other wounded rescuers the medic wanted to keep an eye on. Anakin joined her at some point in the night, as she woke up to find him in his room. It was the first time their entire journey together he hadn’t woken her with his dreams.

They breakfasted with the Lars family, and Sabé sipped blue milk and remembered that this was why Padmé fought so hard in the Senate. To keep peaceful people on far flung worlds safe and whole and as happy as their lot in life would let them be. Anakin sat next to his mother, drinking in her stories of their time apart, and telling a few of his own, and Sabé was more than a little disappointed when R2-D2, Padmé’s droid, came beeping to them with a message.

Padmé and Obi-Wan had managed to get themselves in trouble. They relayed the message to the Jedi Council, then looked at each other after the message cut off. 

“Anakin, proceed with all speed to Geonosis,” Master Windu ordered. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go along with him, handmaiden.”

“That’s alright, Master Jedi,” Sabé said, with a lightness she didn’t totally feel. “My job is to protect Senator Amidala, so he might as well tag along with me.” Anakin gave her a sharp edged smile, and they were off on another rescue.


End file.
